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Outback Tycoon

I have had the chance to play through this twice now, one single player to get my feet wet and then I went and did it MP as well. It seems pretty cool so far, the Oregon trail style explorer stuff is pretty neat, if a little annoying. The scenario seems pretty easy, although I haven't tried it on Deity. Im usually not a fan of the scenarios, but this one being so unique and focused soly on economy makes it stand out better. It is awfully short though, only being sixty turns, but I could actually see myself playing through this one a few times.

The wonders appear to be randomly placed, and the map changes up as well between playthroughs which makes it a little bit more fresh every time. The best civ seems to be the one that starts with a grazer, as pastures and stations early on are a way to get a head start.

What does everybody think so far? I think this is the way to go with DLC for the future, and a good way to get people like me who have never cared for them to actually play them, by making them something truly unique.

so they constant fighting barbarians off in the poland scenario is not unique enough? I found that one a pretty different experience as well.
The Vikings scenario was not that special, but fun. I also played the scenarios in all civs, and I really like the ones for civ VI. I can't say anything about the outback tycoon, since I'm on mac. But I watched the live stream and I'm really looking forward to playing it.

On a side note: I'm curious if the scenarios now auto update with the patches (unlike civ V). In the Vikings scenario, it was a pain to sink all to embarked knights with your longships due to them being so strong. With the patch reducing the embarked cohabit strength, it might feel more like controlling the oceans.

so they constant fighting barbarians off in the poland scenario is not unique enough? I found that one a pretty different experience as well.

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To me it read as;Civilization:Tower Defence(TM). Kill stuff dont die is just a regular game of civ with no early game and a shorter time limit. At least the Tycoon scenario has a completely alternate way to win that we have not seen before. I wish there was some kind of true economic victory in the base game.

Finally beat it! on my third try with 603 gpt on king, I think that sheep pastures and outback station spam together with streatig resourse mines and the +4 gold polecy for that and a late AF force spam did it. Emberasly enough i forgot to build traders, so that could have neted some more cash as well. I playd as the faction that gets extra tiles. Intresting scenario!

I just hit the random civ button, so I if I get the grazier one, I look for pasture resources, if I get the prospector, mining resources... etc. Then I set that up as my science or production center, and start looking for high appeal areas with the lens. the best success I had was using the high appeal areas to spam national parks. Use the high production cities to spam the AIF things at the end, get those national parks everywhere as soon as you can, and remember to change all your cities to gold focus at the end. The score is based on you GPT, even if you only achieve that GPT on the last turn. A tip also, you will have to constantly churn out the explorer guys, don't worry about them dieing. Finding gold early is luck-based but makes a huge difference. you want the 4-5 city boom as fast as you can... but if you have no idea where the settlers are going, you can waste a lot off time with inefficient moves
I've only played 4 times and won twice at King, so take it for what it's worth. It's a decently challenging scenario. I understood it a lot better after figuring out how the outback stations worked.

I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds pretty promising from your description. I like the scenarios that vary the gameplay a good bit from the standard (eg Scramble for Africa in Civ 6), rather than just feel like 90% a normal version of civ on a specific map.

It's definitely not easy. A combat scenario is uninteresting due to the broken AI's ability to wage war. Your mindset has to be from the beginning to build an efficient, economic empire. I lost 2 times on King before I scraped out a win.

I just wish some of the scenarios (but esp this one) were longer than 60 turns. As a marathon player, 60 turns is nothing.

I respect that time is a resource, but you'd think that they'd have longer options for us slow burners too lol

One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.
- Sir Winston Churchill

How much gpt is switching to gold focus at the end worth? I totally forgot to do that.

Still thinking about how to get the 900 gpt deity threshold. Maybe reroll until you get gold and Uluru on the coast, so you start with more cities early with higher gold yields.

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I keep most of my cities on growth and production focus out of habit, because that is how the game works. Do not necessarily trust the city governor, or where it tells you to settle. The thing is, this scenario is only 60 turns long. So you have to be as efficient as possible... and taking over your neighbor isn't possible, no military units. You can't even steal your rival's settlers.To answer your question: it makes a huge difference.

This is a fun, distinctive scenario, but the fixed score targets strike me as being an odd design choice (as well as being very high). If you're competing against a fixed target rather than the other civs, and if there's more than enough decent land to go around (maybe this shouldn't be the case...), it's not clear to me what the function of the AI players is supposed to be.

It felt quite easy for me. I played on King with the +1 appeal, started off with some harbors and traders, beelined graziers and outback stations then spammed them whereever I could, at the same time trying to get a trade unit from every city. I also deliberately kept a city close to a lot of high appeal relatively undeveloped and instantly spammed several naturalists for a 16-tile national park. The instant I had Great War I switched to focusing on AIT projects with the production bonus policy in all my cities (highest production cities could pump them out every 3 turns). Last turn I swapped everything to gold generation, ended at 776 gpt. It should be noted that no gold actually spawned, so I didn't get the two Settlers from Gold Rush (in hindsight I should've gone for the civic without boost), so I could've most likely ended up at quite a bit more gold.

For districts, I built quite a few harbors and commercial hubs and in some cities industrial zones. I don't think I've built a single theater square, neighborhood or campus all game, yet I was still through the civic tree at the end (even including gold rush, which I got the very last turn), and had like 1 tech to go in the science tree.

EDIT: Would also like to note I was at something like 100 gpt or even less 40 turns in. You just gotta work really hard in the last part of the scenario to gain HUGE gpt increases from national parks, policies and in the end switching to gold focus. And outback station spam is just insane.

If AI plays for victory too much, it's called gamey and not roleplaying. If it's roleplaying too much - it's called dumb. ~stealth_nsk here

I really want to know how you can beat this on deity. Getting 900 gold/per turn is easier said than done. I tried the scenario and got 450 gold/turn and I dont really know what I could have done better. Maybe more national parks and more AF. I think you need to be very lucky to get to that kind of numbers.

Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie. Ludwig Wittgenstein